Hatherley in 1871. I suppose that even a
Lord Chancellor does not claim infallible wisdom. Therefore I venture
to insist upon the facts that the Reformation destroyed the Religious
House of St. Katherine; that the changes made by Lord Somers only made
the old Hospital useless; and that the Royal Commission of the year
1871 confirmed, in the new foundation, the later uselessness of the
old. The House of Shams and Shadows in Regent's Park is not the old
St. Katherine's at all; that is dead and done with; it is a fungus
which sprang up yesterday, which is not wholesome for human food, and
uses up, for no good purpose, the soil in which it grows.

Yet, because one would not be charged with unfairness, what does the
Rev. Simcox Lea, in his history of St. Katherine's Hospital (Longmans,
1878), say?

'St. Katherine's Hospital is an Ecclesiastical Corporation, returned
as a "Promotion Spiritual" in the reign of Henry VIII., and so
acknowledged by law in the reign of Charles I. It takes its place as a
Collegiate Church with Westminster and Windsor. The Clerical Head of
its Chapter, the Master of the Hospital, will be entitled, unless Her
Majesty shall see fit otherwise to direct, to the style of Very
Reverend and the rank of Dean. The Brothers have the status and
dignity of Canons Residentiary, and through the Sisters of the Chapter
the parallel dignity of Canonesses is preserved, under another style,
to the English Church of our day. The Collegiate Chapter holds its
entire revenues subject to certain eleemosynary trusts embodied in its
original constitution, the ecclesiastical and the charitable charges
belonging alike to all the estates instead of being assigned
separately to different portions of them.... All these principles of
the constitution of St. Katherine's must be kept in view in any scheme
which it may be proposed to submit, or in any suggestions which may be
offered through the press, for the consideration of the Lord
Chancellor in reference to the advice which he may submit to the
Queen.... St. Katherine's Hospital is no more a "Charity" than
Westminster Abbey is a Charity, and to describe it as such, after the
true facts of the case are known, will leave any writer or speaker
open to the charge of discourtesy, directly offered to a capitular
body whose personal constitution is worthy of its high and ancient
corporate ecclesiastical dignity, and indirectly through the members
of the Chapter, to the Queen.'

It